


The Wrong Soul

by loststardust



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, POV First Person, alternate universe - the host
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-12
Updated: 2017-08-12
Packaged: 2018-12-14 15:38:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11786199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loststardust/pseuds/loststardust
Summary: He had lost track of how long he'd been searching. How long he had scoured the Earth for her. For Grace. Now he wished he'd never found her, he wished that she'd stayed dead, lifeless. Free of the Soul that infected her body.





	The Wrong Soul

Another day. Another bastard day in Hell.

Tommy got up slowly, taking as long as he could without feeling idle. He'd gotten little sleep, having stared at the domed ceiling until the sun first began to filter into the caverns, before finally closing his eyes. It was the third night in a row he'd done it. If he stayed awake as long as he could, he didn't dream. And if he didn't dream, he didn't think of her.

With a groan, he stood from the makeshift-mattress and got dressed, beginning the monotonous routine that had cemented itself into his weary mind. He pulled on his boots, running through the list of tasks he needed to complete today. Pull the mirrors in the grow caves. Clear the tunnels. Check the water supply...Tommy sighed and rubbed at his eyes with calloused hands. He couldn't take much more of this.

"Tommy?" Arthur's voice barked through the curtain that hung in the doorway of Tommy's space.

He sighed, stepping forward to pull aside the thick material. "What is it, Arthur?” It was too early in the morning to be accused of running late, and Arthur never made the trip to Tommy’s room for anything else. 

Arthur stood, breathless, with dust lining his clothes. He'd been out of the compound, searching the desert before the heat of the day made it impossible to do so. "We saw something, Tommy."

Tommy pushed past his brother. "You think you've seen something everyday, Arthur. It's nothing new and I'm tired of hearing it." He glanced back, having expected to be followed, finding Arthur with his feet planted, staring back at him. "What?"

"Just speak to Pol." He went to leave before correcting himself and pointing a finger at Tommy. "We're doing this for you, Tommy. Don't forget that."

Tommy stared, nodding slightly as if to say, 'okay I get it'.

It didn't matter to him, not anymore. Not since hope became a foreign memory.

He turned from Arthur, ducking his head as he took the narrow tunnel to his left. Pol would be in the largest room, and Tommy knew the quickest way of getting there. He'd carved the passageways from the rock himself, tunnelling alongside his brothers and a few other survivors to create something complex, safe from the trouble on the surface. A maze of sand and rock to anyone who didn't know it.

After a few minutes, he'd found her, sitting at the edge of the room with a copper mug in her hands. She always made the place feel like a home, despite it all. Just seeing her lifted an ounce of morbidity from Tommy's shoulders.

"Pol." He nodded to her as he approached.

"Sit down, Tommy." She patted the space beside her and he obliged. "Arthur says they've seen something."

"Arthur-"

"Don't interrupt." She sipped her drink. "He doesn't often get optimistic, he's more miserable than you are these days."

She gave Tommy a scolding look from the corner of her eye before continuing.

"John was there, he saw it too. A truck, like the ones they drive, crashed with its nose in the sand. They counted four bodies."

"So?" Tommy folded his arms.

"It won't be long before they find it, collect the dead. We have to work quickly." She turned to look at him, to check if he was still paying attention. "I want you to go, with Arthur, to take a closer look."

Tommy scoffed.

"I'm serious."

"And so am I, Polly." He stood up. The conversation was over. "I'm not going."

"Something isn't right," she spat, her voice raising, "you don't just find a truck like that in the middle of the desert."

He rolled his eyes. "It's a set-up. Bait from the leeches to draw us out."

"It could be her."

"Don't." His jaw clenched shut.

"It could be her, Tommy." Pol was standing now. 

“I won’t hear it, Pol, not today.”

"You didn't spend months looking to give up now, to ignore the single spec of hope God hands you!"

"I've let it go."

She coughed a laugh. "It? Last I checked it was a she, and she was Grace. You can't-"

"She's gone!” Tommy snapped, his voice echoing around the high chambered ceiling. “She’s fucking gone, Pol, I've accepted that! And the sooner you lot get your heads around it, the better. She's dead. Grace is dead." 

He held Pol’s gaze. Neither showed sign of wavering. 

"We're wasting our time looking for her,” Tommy continued, "and I won't fucking do it anymore."

He paced away from her, ignoring her as she called out after him, claiming that she saw through his lies. 

He wasn't lying. He had given up. 

Grace was gone and that was that. 

 

\-----------------

 

The day had continued as normal. 

Tommy had kept himself to himself, carrying out each task with a habitual precision that kept his mind blank and his arms aching. He'd made it until the afternoon without talking to anyone, a personal victory given his current mood, and found himself slipping into a daze as he cleaned the crops' sprinkler system. 

He liked it in the field room. The tall ceiling, lined high with mirrors, and the central opening, made it almost feel like freedom. If he closed his eyes he could pretend he was outside, in a real field, with farmland stretching into the horizon. If he closed his eyes he’d almost found peace.

"Where is he? Where's Tommy?"

The faint voice disrupted his daydream, his name echoing around the tunnel system to reach him. He opened his eyes, looking over the tall corn stalks as the voice grew louder.

"Tommy?"

He stood. It was John's voice, it was loud enough now for him to recognise that, and it came from the tunnel directly opposite.

"I'm here, John." He called out, wiping his palms clean on his pants as he squinted toward the opening. 

"Tommy!" John appeared in the tunnel, his thick figure framed by the muddy circle, his head only just missing the ceiling. 

He was panting and his forehead dripped with sweat. 

“What is it?”

"We found her, Tommy. We fucking found her."

**Author's Note:**

> i have no idea if the host is too niche a thing to make an AU of but i dig it so hopefully you dig it too
> 
> find me on tumblr: blinder-secrets


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